The number of students applying to read law at university appears to have held up well this year, despite a near 9% fall in applications across all degree subjects in the UK.

Statistics released earlier this week by UCAS reveal that 50,000 fewer UK applicants have applied for university compared with the same point last year. The fall has been blamed on the introduction of the £9,000 maximum annual tuition fee in England.

Bucking the trend, however, law schools reported that applications this year have continued to exceed available places. Among the institutions contacted by the Gazette, Northumbria University law school reported a 7% rise in applications for its undergraduate law degree, while at Bangor University law school the number of applications is more than double that of 2010.

At Birmingham University law school, which has 220 undergraduate places, applications are almost unchanged at 1,686.